Heat and Mass Transfer

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-019-02700-3

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Performance evaluation of a double-pipe heat exchanger

with uniform and graded metal foams
Xue Chen 1,2 & Xinlin Xia 2 & Chuang Sun 2 & Fuqiang Wang 3 & Rongqiang Liu 1

Received: 21 November 2018 / Accepted: 3 July 2019

# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
Metal foam heat exchangers have attracted a great deal of interest in numerous engineering fields due to their superior thermal
capabilities. In the present study, the heat transfer characteristics of a double-pipe heat exchanger with metal foam insert are
numerically investigated. The Forchheimer-extended Darcy equation and the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model are
used to predict the fluid and energy transports, respectively. Thermal resistance of the interface solid wall is considered, while the
porous-solid boundary follows the continuity principles. The commercial software FLUENT with specific user defined functions
(UDFs) is adopted to implement the simulation. Configurations with uniform foam structure are firstly used to analyze the effects
of flow arrangement, foam structural parameters (porosity and pore density) and thermal conductivity on the heat exchanger
effectiveness and total pressure drop. Then, graded foam structure along the radius is proposed to further make use of the heat
transfer potential of metal foam. The overall thermal performance with increasing and decreasing arrangements of porosity and
pore density is assessed. The results indicate that the counter flow shows good performance, with 37.5% higher than the parallel
flow in effectiveness. The effectiveness and total pressure drop present monotonic variation with the foam structural parameters
for the uniform designs, while maximum performance factor occurs at 15 PPI. The effectiveness has a reduction after gradual
increase to a peak 0.89 with the increasing of thermal conductivity of foam matrix. For the designs of graded foam structure,
using lower porosity and small pore density at both side of the inner pipe wall shows better overall performance with the
performance factors of 4.41 and 4.54.

Keywords Double-pipe heat exchanger . Metal foam . Uniform and graded designs . Local thermal non-equilibrium

Nomenclature hv Volumetric heat transfer coefficient, W m−3 K−1

cf Specific heat, J kg−1 K−1 k Thermal conductivity, W m−1 K−1
CF Inertial coefficient K Permeability, m2
dp Pore diameter, m l Length of heat exchanger, m
ṁ Mass flow rate, kg s−1
p Pressure, Pa
* Xue Chen PP Pumping power, W
Hit_chenxue@hit.edu.cn Pr Prandtl number
* Chuang Sun q Heat flux, W m−2
Sunc@hit.edu.cn Q Heat transfer rate, W
Red Reynolds number based on the pore diameter
1
School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, r1, r2, r3 Radius of heat exchanger, m
92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, People’s Republic of China R Dimensionless r coordinate
2
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of T Temperature, K
Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, People’s U Velocity vector, m s−1
Republic of China U Dimensionless velocity
3
School of Automobile Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology at ~
V Volumetric flow rate, m3 s−1
Weihai, 2, West Wenhua Road, Weihai 264209, People’s Republic of x, r Coordinates in flow region, m
China
X Dimensionless x coordinate

Greek symbols
μf Dynamic viscosity, kg m−1 s−1
ρ Density, kg m−3
ϕ Porosity
ω Pore per inch, PPI
θ Dimensionless temperature
ε Heat exchanger effectiveness
Subscripts
1, 2 Inner and annular pipes
eff Effective
f Fluid
in Inlet
out Outlet
s Solid
w Wall
1 Introduction
Heat exchangers are very important elements in multitudinous
industrial applications. So far, various active and passive
methods have been developed to intensify the heat transfer
rate in order to control the overall size and total cost. As a
passive technique, inserting the high porosity open-cell foams
is an effective way and has captured considerable interest
[1–3]. The fluid flow and thermal transport within such a
fluid-foam system has been extensively investigated, such as
foam fully or partially filled tubes, metal foam wrapped pipes,
fully or partially filled porous channels, finned metal foam
heat sinks, and other configurations [4]. Meanwhile, the pro-
motion in the overall system performance is also demonstrated
very well.
In general, for the investigation of forced convection in
the foam-fluid thermal systems, most of the researches are
conducted with the fundamental geometries (tube, parallel
channel and annulus), see Ouyang et al. [5], Dehghan et al.
[6], Bağcı et al. [7], Li et al. [8], etc. Only a few studies are
performed with the double-pipe heat exchangers, which are
the most widely used construction as a foam heat exchang-
er. With partial filling of the porous media, Alkam and Al-
Nimr [9] highlighted that using porous substrates at the
inner pipe wall could substantially increase the double-
pipe heat exchanger effectiveness, especially at high heat
capacity ratios. Allouache and Chikh [10, 11] carried out
the thermodynamics analyses to find the optimal operating
conditions to minimize the total entropy generation. The
individual use and integrated use of porous fins or baffles
and pulsating flow in a double-pipe heat exchanger were
numerically analyzed by Targui and Kahalerras [12, 13],
and they concluded that the technique combining porous
baffles and pulsating flow seems to be promising for im-
proving the overall performance. Numerical investigation
and sensitivity analysis on the turbulent heat transfer in a
Heat Mass Transfer
porous double-pipe heat exchanger were presented by
Milani Shirvan et al. [14, 15], the effects of Reynolds num-
ber, Darcy number and porous substrate thickness were
evaluated. The turbulence effects were also reported by
Jamarani et al. [16] with partially porous filled heat ex-
changer. For the situations completely filled with metal
foam, Chen et al. [17] characterized and quantified the
advantages and drawbacks for this type of device by intro-
ducing a performance factor. The above-mentioned studies
used the local thermal equilibrium (LTE) model to repre-
sent the thermal transport in the foams, neglecting the tem-
perature difference between the fluid and solid phases.
However, in most cases, this assumption is not valid and
the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model should be
used instead, by separately dealing with the two phases
[18–21].
Using the LTNE model, investigations on the thermal per-
formance of double-pipe heat exchanger with foam insert
could be rarely found. Zhao et al. [22] derived an analytical
solution for the convention inside the metal foam filled heat
exchanger with a predefined flux on the interface wall. Du
et al. [23] and Xu et al. [24] theoretically analyzed the conju-
gate heat transfer inside the parallel-flow and contour-flow
double-tube heat exchangers fully occupied by metal foam,
respectively. Double-pipe alumina foam heat exchanger was
designed and tested by Davidson and his co-workers to recov-
er the sensible heat in a high temperature solar thermochem-
ical reactor [25, 26]. The combined utilization of foam guiding
vanes and foam substrate was proposed by Alhusseny et al.
[27] to augment the overall performance, and the potential of
this approach was numerically proved. The previous works all
adopt the design of uniform foam structure. And two main
structural parameters, porosity and PPI (pore per inch), are
usually used to characterize the foam structure features.
Recently, the effect of foam structure arrangement is being
noticed and configurations with functionally graded foam
structure have been proposed to further improve the system
efficiency, which mostly occurs in two forms: multi-layer
[28–32] and gradually-varied [33–35] arrangements. Several
studies have been done with the graded foam filled tube and
parallel channel subjected to constant wall temperature or heat
flux. Aluminum foams with uniform and non-uniform (seg-
mented or integrated) pore size were produced using replica-
tion technique and tested by Zaragoza and Goodall [28], and
higher heat transfer coefficients were achieved by graded pore
size. With two horizontal porous layers, Kuznetsov and Nield
[29] investigated the effects of LTNE, layered medium,
throughflow and internal heating. Meanwhile, the partial fill-
ing with double-layer and three-layer gradient metal foams in
a tube was numerically investigated by Xu et al. [30, 31]. The
arrangements of foam structural parameters were optimized
by Zheng et al. [32] and Siavashi et al. [33] for the foam filled
conduit under the assumption of local thermal equilibrium,
Heat Mass Transfer

Fig. 1 Double-pipe heat fully filled with metal foam adiabatic wall
exchanger filled with metal foam
r hot fluid

r1 r3
o x cold fluid
r2
hot fluid

and the stepwise and linear variation profiles of porosity and
pore size were both considered by the latter authors. Effects of
different porosity gradients and pore-size gradients on the
thermal and flow performance were analyzed by Wang et al.
[34] for the partially and fully porous filled tubes using the
LTE model. Using the LTNE model, Bai et al. [35] addressed
that the heat transfer coefficient significantly increases in a
channel fully filled with graded foam matrix while the poros-
ity distribution follows a parabolic function. Furthermore, the
use of graded foam structure can also be found in the other
thermal applications, such as volumetric solar receiver (dou-
ble-layer [36, 37], three-layer [38, 39], linear distribution [40]
and gradually-varied distribution [41]), energy storage with
phase changer material (three-layer [42] and linear distribution
[43]), and pool boiling (double-layer [44, 45]).
As can be summarized from the literature listed above,
various works have be done on the foam filled double-pipe
heat exchanger, however, the LTE model is mainly
adopted. Besides, few studies can be found using the
LTNE model which considers the temperature difference
between the foam matrix and fluid, while only uniform
design of foam structure is employed. The design of graded
foam structure is now receiving a considerable observa-
tion, which can be also further used in the double-pipe heat
exchanger. Thus, this study focuses on the heat transfer
performance of a double-pipe heat exchanger with uniform
and graded foam structure. The LTNE model is employed
and the coupling effects between the inner and outer pipes
are thoroughly considered, as well as the thermal resistance
of inner pipe wall. Different graded arrangements of the
foam structural properties are discussed.
2 Mathematical model and problem
description
The schematic of a double-pipe heat exchanger fully filled
with metal foam is shown in Fig. 1. Two streams flow through
the inner and annular pipes respectively, and they are separat-
ed with a 2.0 mm solid wall. The total length is 400.0 mm and
the radii of inner and outer pipes are r1 = 20.0 mm and r3 =
42.0 mm. The flows are steady, incompressible and laminar.
The external wall of the outer pipe is thermally insulated and
the thickness is excluded in the physical model. The two fluids
are assumed to enter the pipes with uniform velocity and tem-
perature, while keeping the same mass flow rate (ṁ1 ¼ ṁ2 ).
In the next context, subscripts ‘1’ and ‘2’ are used to represent
the inner and annular spaces, respectively. Moreover, a linear
distribution of the foam structural parameters (porosity and
PPI) from the pipe wall to the freestream is adopted in the
research cases of graded foam structure in section 4, and the
identical parameter range is considered in both the inner and
annular sides.
The fluid flow in the metal foam is described by the
Forchheimer-extended Darcy equation. In the two fluid-
foam regions, the continuity and momentum equations can
be expressed as


∇⋅ ρ f U ¼ 0 ð1Þ
1

∇ ρ f U⋅U ¼ −∇p
ϕ2
1
 μ
f ρf C F
þ ∇⋅ μ f ∇U − U− pffiffiffiffi jUjU ð2Þ
ϕ K K

Table 1 Pertinent parameters for

the metal foam filled heat Cold fluid ρf,1 (kg m−3) cf,1 (J kg−1 K−1) kf,1 (W m−1 K−1) μf,1 (kg m−1 s−1)
exchanger 1.205 1005 0.0259 1.81 × 10−5
Hot fluid ρf,2 (kg m−3) cf,2 (J kg−1 K−1) kf,2 (W m−1 K−1) μf,2 (kg m−1 s−1)
1.0 1009 0.0305 2.11 × 10−5
Solid kw (W m−1 K−1) ks (W m−1 K−1) cold inlet (°C) hot inlet (°C)
16.3 16.3 20 80
 Heat Mass Transfer

The energy equations of the fluid phase and solid phase 0.0
y
within the two pipes are qw=const

    -0.5 solid wall h
∇⋅ ρ f c f UT f ¼ ∇⋅ k f ;eff þ k d ∇T f
x porous domain 2h
  o
þ hsf asf T s −T f ð3Þ -1.0 h
   

f
qw=const
∇⋅ k s;eff ∇T s þ hsf asf T f −T s ¼ 0 ð4Þ
-1.5
Zhang et al. [53]
Besides, the thermal conduction in the interface solid pipe
present work
wall can be described as -2.0
Da=0.02
∇⋅ðk w ∇T w Þ ¼ 0 ð5Þ porous domain: fluid phase
-2.5
where ρf, μf and cf are the fluid density, dynamic viscosity and 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
thermal capacity. ϕ, p, U and T are the porosity, fluid pressure, y/h
superficial velocity and temperature. K and CF represent the
0.06
permeability and inertial coefficient. kf, eff and ks, eff are the
effective thermal conductivities of the two phases, and kd is porous domain: solid wall
solid phase
the dispersion conductivity. kw is the thermal conductivity of 0.04
the solid pipe wall, and the symbol hv = hsfasf denotes the
volumetric heat transfer coefficient to couple the two energy
0.02
equations. For the determination of the above effective trans- s

port parameters for metal foams, a detailed review is given by

Alhusseny et al. [46]. Here, the effective thermal conductivi- 0.00
ties are calculated by the following correlations proposed by Zhang et al. [53]
Boomsma and Poulikakos [47]. present work
-0.02
pffiffiffi Da=0.02
2
k eff ¼ ð6Þ
2ðRA þ RB þ RC þ RD Þ -0.04
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
where y/h
Fig. 2 Validation of the simulation on the conjugate heat transfer at
porous/solid interface when the LTNE model is used

4λ
RA ¼ ;
½2e2 þ πλð1−eÞk s þ ½4−2e2 −πλð1−eÞk f
ðe−2λÞ2
RB ¼ ;
ðe−2λÞe2 k s þ ½2e−4λ−ðe−2λÞe2 k f
pffiffiffi 2
2−2e
RC ¼  pffiffiffi pffiffiffi  pffiffiffi ;
2πλ 1−2e 2 k s þ 2 2−2e−πλ2 1−2e 2 k f
2
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u pffiffiffi
pffiffiffi
u 2 2−ð5=8Þe3 2−2ϕ
2e t
RD ¼ 2 ; and λ ¼  pffiffiffi  ; e ¼ 0:339; k f ;eff ¼ k eff k f ¼0 ; k s;eff ¼ k eff k ¼0 :
e k s þ ð4−e Þk f
2
π 3−4e 2−e s

The heat transfer enhancement due to the fluid mixing in Permeability and inertial coefficient are computed accord-
foam structure at the pore scale is considered, and it can be ing to the model proposed by Calmidi [49] as follows.
expressed as thermal dispersion. The dispersion conductivity
is assumed to be isotropic and computed by the model pro- K  −1:11
posed in Ref. [48] as 2
¼ 0:00073ð1−ϕÞ−0:224 d f =d p ð8Þ
dp
pffiffiffiffi
k d ¼ CDρ f c f K u ð7Þ
 −1:63
where CD = 0.06. C F ¼ 0:00212ð1−ϕÞ−0:132 d f =d p ð9Þ
Heat Mass Transfer

ρ f ud
100 where Red ¼ μf , d = (1 − e−((1 − ϕ)/0.04))df, and the interfacial
0.918 experiment, Garrity et al. [54]
90 present work 3πd f ð1−e−ðð1−ϕÞ=0:04Þ Þ
20PPI surface area is calculated as asf ¼ [48, 51].
ð0:59d p Þ
2

80 A two-dimensional, axisymmetric model is built. The

y
70 adiabatic boundary conditions employed to solve the aforementioned
TJ governing equations are given as follows.
TJ (oC)

60 aluminum foam h
o x qw=const
50 8
>
> ∂T s
>
> 0 < r < r1 : u ¼ ufin;1 ; v ¼ 0; ¼ 0; T f ¼ T fin;1
40 >
< ∂x
∂T w
at x ¼ 0; r1 < r < r2 : ¼0
30 >
> ∂x
>
> ∂u ∂v ∂T f ∂T s
>
: r2 < r < r3 : ¼ ¼ ¼ ¼0
20 ∂x ∂x ∂x ∂x
1 2 3 4 5 ð11Þ
ufin (m/s)
Fig. 3 Comparison of the upper surface temperature at x = 0.5 l with
experimental data in Ref. [53] ∂u ∂T s ∂T f
at r ¼ 0 : ¼ 0; v ¼ 0; ¼ ¼0 ð12Þ
∂r ∂r ∂r
qffiffiffiffiffiffi

d
where dpf ¼ 1:18 1−ϕ 1
3π 1−e−ðð1−ϕÞ=0:04Þ and dp = 0.0254/ω.
The empirical model of Zukauskas [50] is employed to
compute the interstitial heat transfer coefficient.
8
< 0:76Red0:4 Pr0:37 k f =d; 1≤ Red ≤ 40
hsf ¼ 0:52Red0:5 Pr0:37 k f =d; 40≤ Red ≤ 103 ð10Þ
:
0:26Red0:6 Pr0:37 k f =d; 103 ≤ Red ≤ 2  105

8
>   ∂T f ∂T s ∂T w
< r ¼ r1 ; r2 : u ¼ v ¼ 0; − k f ;eff þ k d −k s;eff ¼ −k w ; T f ¼ Ts ¼ Tw
at 0 < x < l; ∂r ∂r ∂r ð13Þ
>   ∂T f ∂T s
: r ¼ r3 : u ¼ v ¼ 0; − k f ;eff þ k d −k s;eff ¼ 0; T f ¼ T s ¼ T w
∂r ∂r

8
>
> ∂u ∂v ∂T f ∂T s
>
> 0 < r < r1 : ¼ ¼ ¼ ¼0
>
< ∂x ∂x ∂x ∂x
∂T w
at x ¼ l; r1 < r < r2 : ¼0
>
> ∂x
>
> ∂T s
>
: r2 < r < r 3 : u ¼ −ufin;2 ; v ¼ 0; ¼ 0; T f ¼ T fin;2
∂x
ð14Þ

The inlet temperatures of the two fluids are 20 °C and

Fig. 4 Comparison of the dimensionless velocity profile with Ref. [23]
80 °C, respectively. The inlet velocity of cold fluid is
0.75 m/s, and that of hot fluid is determined based on
the assumption of identical mass flow rate. The pipe wall
is made of stainless steel with a conductivity of 16.3 W/
(m·K), and the same value is taken for the solid foam
matrix as a typical case (such as stainless steel foam and
FeCrAlY foam). Additionally, the thermophysical proper-
ties in all simulations are regarded to be constant, which
are listed in Table 1.
 Heat Mass Transfer

Table 2 Comparison of the two flow arrangements 1.0

=0.9; = =10PPI
Arrangement ε △pt (Pa) ppt (W) I ks1=ks2; m1=m2
0.8
Parallel flow Without foam 0.13 0.5 4.52e-4 –
ufin,1=0.5 m/s
With foam 0.48 194.6 0.19 2.51
Counter flow Without foam 0.14 0.5 4.52e-4 – ufin,1=0.75m/s
0.6
With foam 0.66 194.6 0.19 3.80 ufin,1=1.5m/s

0.4
The two main factors concerned in the design process of
heat exchanger are the heat exchanger effectiveness (ε) and
total pressure drop (Δpt). 0.2 SS/FeCrAlY Ni Al Cu

 
Qex ṁ1 c f ;1 T fout;1 −T fin;1
ε¼ ¼   0.0
Qmax C T fin;2 −T fin;1 10 100 1000 10000
  ks/kf1
ṁ2 c f ;2 T fout;2 −T fin;2
¼   ð15Þ Fig. 6 Effect of foam thermal conductivity on the heat exchanger
C T fin;2 −T fin;1 effectiveness

Δpt ¼ Δp1 þ Δp2 ð16Þ

 
where C ¼ min ṁ1 c f ;1 ; ṁ2 c f ;2 , Δp1 and Δp2 are the pres-
sure drops in the inner and annular sides respectively.
In addition, in order to assess the overall thermal perfor-
mance, the evaluation criterion introduced by Chen et al. [17]
is used here. The performance factor is defined as [17]
ðQex =L−PPt =LÞfoam −ðQex =L−PPt =LÞplain
I¼
ðQex =L−PPt =LÞplain
where PPt is the total pumping power, which can be deter-
~ ).
mined using the pressure drop and volumetric flow rate (V
PPt ¼ PP1 þ PP2 ¼ Ṽ1 Δp1 þ Ṽ2 Δp2
3 Solution validation
The numerical analysis is performed using the commercial
software FLUENT with a two-dimensional axisymmetric
model, and the governing equations are solved by the
finite-volume method. SIMPLE algorithm is applied to
handle the pressure–velocity coupling. Several User
Defined Functions (UDFs) are hooked to set the boundary
conditions or determine the transport parameters. A non-
ð17Þ uniform but structured grid (250 × 65) has been applied
after independence check. The convergence criterion of
the residual is set to 10−10. During the simulation, the con-
jugate heat transfer at the interface between porous foam
and solid wall should be carefully treated to guarantee the
continuity of interfacial temperature and heat flux, while
this is automatically satisfied when using the LTE model.
ð18Þ When adopting the LTNE model, the boundary condition
as Eq. (10) is used, which is presented according to the

Fig. 5 Variation of the bulk fluid =0.9; = =10PPI =0.9; = =10PPI

temperature along the axial 360 ks1=ks2; m1=m2 360
ks1=ks2; m1=m2
direction for the two flow
arrangements
340 340
Tf,b (K)
Tf,b (K)

320 320

300 300
solid line and solid symbol: with foam solid line and solid symbol: with foam
dash line and hollow symbol: without foam dash line and hollow symbol: without foam
280 280
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
x (m) x (m)
(a) parallel flow (b) counter flow
Heat Mass Transfer

Fig. 7 Effect of foam thermal 330 340

conductivity on the temperature x = 0.25 l hot side x = 0.5 l hot side
325 dash line : fluid phase 335 dash line : fluid phase
distribution at ufin, 1 = 0.75m/s solid line : solid phase solid line : solid phase
320 330
wall
wall 325 cold side
315

T (K)

T (K)
cold side 320
310
ks= 16.3, 91.4, 236 W/(m K)
315 ks= 16.3, 91.4, 236 W/(m K)
305
310
300 305
295 300
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
r (m) r (m)
(a) x=0.25l (b) x=0.5l

heat flux division between the two constituents [52, 53]. 4 Results and discussion
The test case in Ref. [53] is repeated here and compared as
shown in Fig. 2. The porosity is 0.95, effective conductiv- 4.1 Heat exchanger performance with uniform foam
ity ratio (kf, eff/ks, eff) is 0.23, Biot number (Bi = hvh2/ks, eff) structure
is 0.025 and Darcy number (Da = K/h2) is 0.02. The di-
mensionless temperature in Fig. 2 is defined as Two flow arrangements, namely parallel flow and counter
θ ¼ Tq−Th=k
interface
s;eff
. flow, are firstly compared at the porosity of 0.9 and pore
w

The modeling of LTNE heat transfer within metal foam
is checked against the experiments on forced convection
in an aluminum foam filled channel with one side exposed
to a constant heat flux [54]. The upper surface tempera-
ture is predicted and compared for different inlet veloci-
ties at qw = 9.77 kW/m2. From Fig. 3, satisfactory agree-
ment between the simulations and experimental data is
obtained. Furthermore, the flow in a double-pipe foam
heat exchanger is simulated by the Forchheimer-
extended Darcy model under the same operating condi-
tions in Ref. [24]. The porosity is 0.9 and pore density
is 5 PPI. The velocity profile is displayed in Fig. 4 (R = r/
r1, U = u/ufin, 1) and it shows good agreement.
density of 10PPI. Meanwhile, the similar cases of plain heat
exchanger (without metal foam) are also simulated. As exhib-
ited in Table 2, compared with the plain heat exchanger,
inserting metal foam has remarkably increased the heat ex-
changer effectiveness, however, at an expense of pressure
drop increment. Compared with the plain heat exchangers,
the improvements in effectiveness with foam insert are about
3.7 times (0.48/0.13) and 4.7 times (0.66/0.14) for the two
flow arrangements, respectively. The results also reveal that
a better performance is reached by the counter flow arrange-
ment, and the effectiveness is 0.48 and 0.66 for the two cases
with foam. The effectiveness of counter flow presents (0.66–
0.48)/0.48 = 37.5% higher than the parallel flow for the cases
with foam, and the performance factors are 3.80 and 2.51 as

˂S W 3D
ε
  

  

 
 

 

 
˂S W3D

 
 
ε

  


   
 

   
   
 
  ˶33,
 
ϕ   ˶ 33,
ϕ  
   

Fig. 8 Effects of the foam structural parameters on the heat exchanger effectiveness and total pressure drop
 Heat Mass Transfer

,
Table 3 Some results of configurations with uniform foam structure

 Uniform designs ε Δpt (Pa) ppt (W) I
 

ϕ = 0.8, ω = 10PPI 0.79 232.5 0.23 4.73
 
ϕ = 0.95, ω = 10PPI 0.50 180.9 0.18 2.62
 ϕ = 0.9, ω = 5PPI 0.64 72.1 0.07 3.71
 
ϕ = 0.9, ω = 30PPI 0.67 1207.6 1.20 3.75
,


 

 Besides, the peaks moves towards the larger conductivity as


  the velocity increases. Before the peak, the thermal resistance
 
 ˶33, along the radial direction is greatly reduced by increasing the
 
ϕ conductivity, which promotes the radial heat transfer from hot
 
side to cold side, consequently leading to an increment in
Fig. 9 Performance factor at different combinations of foam structural
parameters effectiveness. However, with further increasing the conductiv-
ity, the unexpected decrement trend in effectiveness arises,
which is attributed to the enhanced axial thermal conduction.
shown in the table. Besides, the bulk temperature of the fluid The similar phenomenon here like a ‘short-circuiting’ is also
phase for different cross sections are plotted in Fig. 5. Nearly noticed by Alhusseny et al. [27], namely, more heat is con-
linear and asymptotic profiles are respectively obtained by the ducted away via annular pipe outlet rather than being
two flow conditions, and the change trend in the cases with transported to the inner pipe across the interface solid wall.
metal foam is more obvious than the cases without metal This outcome becomes stronger at a lower flow rate (see the
foam. curves in Fig. 6). Additionally, the effectiveness is diminished
Figure 6 demonstrates that the thermal conductivity of by increasing the flow rate at a fixed low thermal conductivity,
foam matrix strongly affects the thermal performance. As whereas the contrary trend occurs when it exceeds a certain
the solid phase conductivity of metal foam increases, the heat high conductivity. Temperature profiles at the cross sections,
exchanger effectiveness firstly gradually grows, reaches a x = 0.25 l and x = 0.5 l, are displayed in Fig. 7. The tempera-
peak, and then tends to decrease. The peak values are about ture gradient along the radius decreases with the increase of
0.89, 0.89 and 0.88 for the three flow rates (represented as thermal conductivity.
inlet velocities of 0.5, 0.75 and 1.5 m/s in the inner pipe). Effects of foam structural parameters on the thermal per-
formance are exhibited in Figs. 8 and 9, keeping the other
operating conditions unchanged as in Fig. 5a. Generally,
increasing decreasing monotonic changes in the heat exchanger effectiveness and
the total pressure drop are observed with the porosity and pore
increasing increasing density, however, the variation in pressure drop is sharper. The
maximum effectiveness of 0.79 is achieved by ϕ = 0.8, ω = 30
PPI with the maximum total pressure drop of 1681.4 Pa. The
main reason is that a decrease in porosity can distinctly in-
crease the effective thermal conductivity to augment the heat
transfer, simultaneously also increase the fraction of solid
Case 1 Case 2 phase and flow resistance. Besides, increasing pore density
leads to a denser foam matrix, higher flow resistance and also
higher volumetric convection heat transfer rate. From Fig. 8, it
increasing decreasing
is clear that the variable amplitude of effectiveness versus
porosity is greater than pore density, while contrary tendency
decreasing decreasing
occurs in the total pressure drop. According to Fig. 9, a better
overall performance (evaluated by performance factor) is ob-
tain by a low porosity, although with a relatively high total
pressure drop. The variation of performance factor with pore
density is not obvious. Besides, it is found that the peak per-
Case 3 Case 4 formance factor occurs at ω = 15PPI at different porosities
Fig. 10 Schematic of the four cases with graded foam structure (0.8~0.95). The maximum performance factor is 4.74 at ϕ =
Heat Mass Transfer
Fig. 11 Thermal performance of
the configurations with graded
porosity design
pt(×100Pa), I
,
0.8, ω = 15PPI. It can also be seen that the porosity has a
stronger influence on the overall performance.
4.2 Heat exchanger performance with graded foam
structure
Several studies have outlined that the heat transfer might be
improved through proper selection and arrangement of the
porosity and pore density, and the graded design of foam
structure is proposed as an effective technique. In order to
identify the impacts of graded foam structure on the perfor-
mance of metal foam filled double pipe heat exchanger, here,
the linear profiles of porosity or pore density along the radius
are analyzed respectively with the ranges of 0.8–0.95
(porosity) and 5–30 PPI (pore density). We use four cases to
represent the situations as shown in Fig. 10, namely, case 1:
both the inner and annular sides have the increasing arrange-
ment, case 2: increasing in inner pipe while decreasing in
annular pipe, case 3: decreasing in inner pipe while increasing
in annular pipe, and case 4: both sides have the decreasing
arrangement. Two conditions are considered, one is graded
porosity at fixed pore density (10 PPI), and the other is graded
pore density at fixed porosity (0.9). Besides, some results of
uniform foam design are used as a reference (see Table 3).
The graded arrangement of porosity is firstly taken into
consideration at a fixed pore density of 10 PPI. Figure 11
illustrates that the maximum effectiveness (0.74) is reached
by case 3, nearly the same effectiveness (0.66 and 0.67) is
obtained by the cases 1 and 4, and the minimum (0.60) ap-
pears in case 2. Besides, the four cases nearly have the same
Table 4 Performance of the different cases with graded porosity design
Graded porosity design ε Δpt (Pa) ppt (W)
Case 1 0.66 198.1 0.20
Case 2 0.60 200.2 0.20
Case 3 0.74 206.8 0.20
Case 4 0.67 209.0 0.21
5.0
ω1=ω2=10PPI 4.41
4.5
3.79 3.87
4.0
3.37
3.5
3.0
2.5 2.00 2.07 2.09
1.98
2.0
1.5
1.0 0.66 0.60 0.74 0.67
0.5
0.0
0.8-0.95&0.8-0.95 0.8-0.95&0.95-0.8 0.95-0.8&0.8-0.95 0.95-0.8&0.95-0.8
case 1 case 2 case 3 case 4
ε Δpt I
total pressure drop. By comparison, the variation of perfor-
mance factor shows the same trend as that of effectiveness, the
maximum 4.41 is achieved by cases 3. Combined with the
performance factor in Table 3, it can be seen that all the graded
designs have better performance than the uniform deign of
ϕ = 0.95, ω = 10 PPI and worse than ϕ = 0.8, ω = 10 PPI, how-
ever holding a lower total pressure drop. It illustrates that the
graded design still has a good potential. This figure also indi-
cates that the overall performance mainly depends on the foam
layer located at the double sides of the inner pipe wall. Since
low porosities (0.8) are attached to the heat transfer surface,
the heat transport increases due to the high effective thermal
conductivity. For the cases 1 and 4, the porosities nearby the
inner pipe are almost the same and the performance factors are
close to each other. The permeability is increased by increas-
ing the porosity, and so the maximum velocity magnitude
occur near the wall at a high porosity, intensifying the convec-
tion heat transfer. However, the thermal conductivity is de-
creased by increasing the porosity, meaning that a trade off
between the convection and conduction exists. Here, the con-
duction predominates the heat exchange, which overcomes
the comparably weaker convective mechanism. Besides, the
detailed features are listed in the Table 4.
The temperature distribution along the radial direction is
depicted in Fig. 12 for the graded porosity configurations.
Similar variation trends are attained by the same graded ar-
rangement used in the inner or annular pipe. Although the
temperature gradient is larger with high porosity nearby the
inner pipe wall, the effective conductivity is lower, causing a
larger gradient in the entire profile and a lower mean temper-
ature in the inner pipe.
Different configurations with graded pore density are sim-
ulated at a constant porosity of 0.9, and the results are present-
I
ed in Fig. 13. The same arrangement in inner pipe has a com-
3.79 parable total pressure drop. Case 3 holds the maximum effec-
3.37 tiveness (0.76), and the difference between the cases 1 and 4 is
4.41 slight, while the minimum 0.57 is obtained by case 2.
3.87 Combined with the performance factor in Table 3, case 3 also
have better performance than the uniform designs with ϕ =
 Heat Mass Transfer

Fig. 12 Temperature profiles at 340 340

x = 0.5 l
the middle cross section for the x = 0.5 l
335 dash line : fluid phase 335 dash line : fluid phase
different cases with graded solid line : solid phase
solid line : solid phase
porosity design 330 case 1
330
0.8-0.95&0.8-0.95 case 3
325 325 0.95-0.8&0.8-0.95

T (K )
T (K)
320 case 2 320
0.8-0.95&0.95-0.8 case 4
315 315 0.95-0.8&0.95-0.8
310 310
305 305
300 300
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
r (m) r (m)

Fig. 13 Thermal performance of 6.0 5.47

the configurations with graded 5.23 = =0.9
pore density design 5.0 4.54
pt(×100Pa), I

3.81 3.69
4.0
3.15
2.89
3.0 2.65

2.0
,

1.0 0.66 0.57 0.76 0.64

0.0
5-30&5-30PPI 5-30&30-5PPI 30-5&5-30PPI 30-5&30-5PPI
case 1 case 2 case 3 case 4
ε Δpt I

0.9, ω = 5 PPI and ϕ = 0.9, ω = 30 PPI. Here, due to the same hand, temperature gradient near the interface conducting wall
porosity is adopted, the thermal resistance of conduction near (inner pipe wall) determines the overall heat transfer, case 3
the interface conducting wall is identical. Therefore, the influ- has a lager gradients at the both sides near the inner pipe wall,
ence of convection heat transfer plays the predominant role. due to the high permeability and velocity magnitude nearby
Since the permeability increases as the pore density decreases, the wall.
the small pore density increases the velocity magnitude and its
gradient near the wall. When more fluid flows near the wall, it
transfers more heat from the wall and consequently the heat
transfer process improves. Thus, the best performance is
5 Conclusions
achieved by case 3 with a performance factor of 4.54. The
In this study, the thermal performance of metal foam fully
detailed parameters are listed in Table 5.
filled double-pipe heat exchanger is numerically investigated.
Furthermore, higher pore density has a higher volumetric
The uniform and non-uniform foam structure in the inner and
heat transfer coefficient, yielding a smaller temperature differ-
annular pipes are considered and analyzed under the same
ence between two phases, as illustrated in Fig. 14. On other
mass flow rate in both sides. Numerical models of the conju-
gate heat transfer between two fluids and the LTNE heat trans-
Table 5 Performance of the different cases with graded pore density fer between the two phases are fully established. The ranges of
design the foam structural parameters used here are porosity of 0.8–
0.95 and pore density of 5–30 PPI. The main conclusions can
Graded pore density design ε Δpt (Pa) ppt (W) I
be drawn as follows.
Case 1 0.66 546.8 0.53 3.81
Case 2 0.57 522.6 0.51 3.15 (1) The flow arrangement, thermal conductivity and foam
Case 3 0.76 289.0 0.291 4.54 structural parameters have significant effect on the ther-
Case 4 0.64 264.8 0.26 3.69 mal performance of heat exchanger. The effectiveness of
counter flow with foam insert presents 37.5% higher
Heat Mass Transfer

Fig. 14 Temperature profiles at 340 340

x = 0.5 l x = 0.5 l
the middle cross section for dash line : fluid phase 335 dash line : fluid phase
335
different cases with graded pore solid line : solid phase solid line : solid phase
density design 330 case 1 330
5-30PPI&5-30PPI case 3
325 325 30-5PPI&5-30PPI

T (K)
T (K)
320 case 2 320
5-30PPI&30-5PPI
315 315 case 4
30-5PPI&30-5PPI
310 310
305 305
300 300
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
r (m) r (m)

than the parallel flow. The effectiveness firstly increases
and then decreases with the increment in solid conduc-
tivity rather than steady increasing.
(2) In case of the uniform foam structure, the effectiveness
and total pressure drop show monotonic change with the
variation in porosity and pore density. Low porosity and
large pore density have larger effectiveness and pressure
drop, whereas the maximum performance factor occurs
at 15 PPI for different porosities.
(3) Configuration with lower porosity attached to the both
sides of inner pipe wall holds the best performance in the
case of graded porosity design. Besides, for the graded
pore density design, a small pore density with high per-
meability located at the inner pipe wall have improved
performance than the other arrangements.
Acknowledgments This study is supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 51806046, No. 51776053, No.
51536001) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No.
2018 M630350).
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
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